"One morph of this species grows only on soils in arid areas of southern Spain which contain the very soft mineral gypsum"

http://www.arkive.org/crater-lichen/diploschistes-ocellatus/

The picture in Reply 121 might be a picture of a cryptobiotic crust.

/R

marsman

Wildcat

Posts: xxx

Reply: 125

Posted: January 23, 2013 9:13 PM

They sure did take a lot of pictures on me specific area of the rover today.

Here's a closer look:

Original:

I doubt it looked like this when it rolled off the assembly line. Probably just a "vein" of "gypsum" on this roc....oh, wait a minute.

Wildcat

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Reply: 126

Posted: January 23, 2013 9:21 PM

I'm sure regular old dust or an innocent nick from a rock merits the large amount of pictures taken of it today. Sending data/pictures from Mars is like watching YouTube with a cable modem right?

I wonder where the design engineers got the rattlesnake looking pattern present on the bottom inside corner of the bracket-looking piece of metal with all the colors and stuff on it? Maybe a dice-on-the-rearview gag?

marsman

Posts: 303

Reply: 127

Posted: January 23, 2013 10:45 PM

Knicks, scratches, bent metal, and *dirt* sticking to the rover in the above pictures? The sticky dirt would imply moisture, I think..

Is that rust on the underside of the rover? On Earth, iron bacteria are the primary culprit for the rust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_bacteria

/R

marsman

Wildcat

Posts: xxx

Reply: 128

Posted: January 23, 2013 11:30 PM

Upon further review, it is the wheel. The interesting items are slightly elevated atop the cleat.

The "rust" is the inside of the wheel.

Why take a picture of this part of this wheel? And so man times? Why today, after our LED night pic of the ground?

I still say the MAHLI is the best instrument for optical observations of the MSL. Actually I waited for them testing LED illumination/night time observations - especially the UV illumination - and wait for further usage.

As I suspected the bright white patches are due to (white-) fluorescence in parts which would support the identification of gypsum and calcium in general by the other instruments if the MAHLI UV leds emitting long wave UV. Still there are some even more interesting possibilities.
Watchout for a red glow under UV which could point to chlorophyll bearing material.

As for identification of lichen like organism via fluorescence/spectroscopy a RAMAN spectrometer would do the trick if used accordingly.

By the way - the crater lichen grow is what i was reminded of when first seen the "newbierries" of Opportunity...

here is a nice collection of crustose lichen pics:detail/

Wildcat

Posts: xxx

Reply: 130

Posted: January 24, 2013 11:06 PM

Here's that V pattern I keep talking about:

Interesting how it transects all the white life-looking stuff.

Wildcat

Posts: xxx

Reply: 131

Posted: January 24, 2013 11:21 PM

Crude GIF of crust lichen and a peculiar Martian rock:

http://i.picasion.com/pic64/9f810fdb7d66ee664c4c8442ff2023ae.gif

newboy

Posts: 1

Reply: 132

Posted: January 25, 2013 5:04 AM

Wildcat,

Please explain why angles that you observe in different images have significance? Or 'V' patterns?

As devil's advocate for your argument and as a geologist, my reaction is 'so what?'

marsman

Posts: 303

Reply: 133

Posted: January 25, 2013 11:12 AM

I don't know if this helps, but here is a picture rock ridges in sandstone:

As for the "so what" portion of this, I think that this would imply past water.

/R

marsman

Wildcat

Posts: xxx

Reply: 134

Posted: January 25, 2013 11:50 PM

Original (Sol 16
:

Flipped and enhanced:

Here is the V (or X) looking pattern I keep talking about (same picture as above, at right):

There's a lot of symmetry there. Truly amazing for just a regular old rock.

Wildcat

Posts: xxx

Reply: 135

Posted: January 26, 2013 12:04 AM

My response on the V-pattern as a non-geologist and just a guy looking at all the pictures is: what is this object and why is it everywhere?

I'm not a geologist. I'm not a scientist. But, I can use my eyes the same as a geologist or a scientist to spot similarities.

As an uneducated non-geologist/scientist, I surprisingly remember something about life being symmetrical. These objects exhibit a lot of symmetry. There are a lot of these objects. My limited knowledge tells me that would seem to be highly unlikely to just be rocks.

Rocks are just too advanced for me, so I know nothing about them.

Maybe a geologist can tell me: What is this shape? What explains this shape being located in multiple places in this area? What explains it being located in Cape York? If its just a rock, then common sense tells me that's one amazing rock. If "so what" then why are they taking so many pictures of it?

Wildcat

Posts: xxx

Reply: 136

Posted: January 26, 2013 12:19 AM

My small mind wonders whether these are related because they look similar:

My small mind wonders, then, if they are, are they related to this thing that our scientists said was rover plastic then unceremoniously said a few days later that it was actually from Mars:

What is the "rover plastic?" Our Caltech scientists and world-class geologists didn't seem to know. It's not plastic, its not a rock, and it's from Mars. What if it is, dare I say . . . life?

Wildcat

Posts: xxx

Reply: 137

Posted: January 26, 2013 1:35 AM

Oppy black hangy things are attached, or hanging, to the rock. "Rover plastic" has a stem looking thing at the end:

Oh, and they have a very similar shape. Why does the "Rover plastic" stem have stuff emanating from it?

What if they are related?

--- It's not from Earth.
--- It's not manmade.
--- It's from Mars.
--- They don't know what it is.
--- It's not a rock.
--- It looks lifelike on its own (stem looks like .. a stem).
--- It's not a unique phenomea to Rocknest.
--- It's on the other side of the planet.
--- It is seen in different "forms."

Seems to me that's one way of going about looking for life without a laboratory analysis or a Ph.D. Look for similarities in photographs and compare.

I think the "Rover plastic" is the perfect thing to look for considering they don't know what it is despite the fact they were initially willing to quickly label it as "plastic" without running any tests. Then, a few weeks later, we get teased with a "for the history books" announcement only to get simple organics. Okay, so organics were found less then three feet away from this "Rover plastic" that was not from earth, which seems to me to say that the organics are also Martian.

So, while looking for patterns, I start to notice the slighlty domed V (or X) pattern. They have taken picture after picture after picture after picture of them, so I've noticed quite a bit of them. They broke out the brush on one of them. They broke out some UV nighttime photography on one of them. This tells me that they find these things of extreme interest.

Is the rover plastic related to the V domed object? If so, it seems to me that the answer to your question ain't "so what."

Most likely, I'm on an fools errand. Oh well, at least I'm using my mind instead of watching mindless television during my free time.

Mizar

Posts: 692

Reply: 138

Posted: January 26, 2013 4:07 AM

Wildcat, keep on! I guess this inquistiveness applies to all of us. That's we're looking for, that's what the Mars exploration is about. Good observations.

marsman

Posts: 303

Reply: 139

Posted: January 26, 2013 12:53 PM

Amen to that! Your posts and insights are very much appreciated.

V/R

marsman

marsman

Posts: 303

Reply: 140

Posted: January 26, 2013 2:34 PM

Yep. The 'rover plastic' has been seen before. From mann's picture archive, there is this: